Picking our own players

The Idaho Republican Party should be able to exclude Democrats and liberals when choosing candidates for office, writes Doyle Beck.

If you are like me, you probably enjoy watching sports. You know how it goes. You watch your favorite team play an opponent, usually on television, but sometimes you even go to the game and participate as a fan.

You know how it works. Your team's organization picks the players to play the opponent. Sometimes your team wins. Sometimes your team loses. If your team loses too much, its brand becomes tarnished and the team's organization reorganizes and picks a new team.

It happens all the time.

For example, many people around here love watching the Utah Jazz. But what if we changed the rules so instead of the Utah Jazz organization picking the players, the fans in the audience picked the players for the Jazz?

Better yet, what if before a game, the Jazz were to let anyone in the audience pick the players for the game -- including the fans of the Jazz' opponents, who buy a ticket just so they could help pick the Jazz team players who would play against their team?

Obviously, allowing the fans of an opponent's team to pick the players from your team before a game is patently absurd. The Utah Jazz is a private sports organization. And that organization gets to pick the players for its team. If the team for the Jazz cannot compete on the court, then its fans will lose interest and seek out a better team, one that they can cheer for.

The Idaho Republican Party is a private political organization. Just as the Utah Jazz gets to pick its players for a sports contest, the Republican Party should be able to pick its candidates for a political contest. And just as nobody would ever suggest that the fans of an opposing team pick the Utah Jazz players to play in the game, the Republican Party organization should be allowed to pick their team of candidates instead of allowing people to pick candidates whose beliefs do not align with the Republican Party organization.

Otherwise, Democrats and liberals seek to add their favorite players to the Republican Party team because Democrats and liberals have no team to cheer for.

So, Corey Taule, your criticism of the rule change makes you like a fan of a visiting opponent at a sporting event who cries foul unless he gets to pick the players of the home team. Your position would be absurd in sporting contests and is equally absurd in political contests.